Because it's uterUS. (Get it?)

How You Can Help

A quick medical update, to start: I got results back from the first of my monthly blood tests, after weeks of waiting. Good news – the antibody levels were too weak to titre, so no cause for concern at this stage in the game. We’ll continue testing as we go and the levels could either stay fine like this the whole way through, or they could go up at any point.

This whole situation has become seriously more complex than I’d ever imagined it could, in some ways that are clear from my posts and in others that perhaps I’ll be able to write more about someday. With all that, though, I have some sense that perhaps the worst is over, even given what may come. We have all the relevant medical scenarios covered and know what the plan will be for the future, and now it’s just about waiting and seeing what happens. At this point, the medical part actually doesn’t make me anxious. (But if things do go south and I start to freak out, someone remind me that I said all that, okay?)

Right now, with all of the glass-half-empty that exists, I’m trying my darndest to stay even more focused on the water that does happen to be sitting right there in the glass, too. I’m trying to remember how desperate David and Vivianne are to have a baby. I’m trying to remember that I’m still the one working on making that happen for them. And I’m trying to remember that as much research as I did going into my surrogacy (have I mentioned that my lawyer said I was the most prepared person she’d ever worked with?) that I can help make sure that other people who may decide to do this can be informed about some of the potential issues at play.

That’s where you come in, actually.

Throughout this process I’ve been fortunate to meet many wonderful people, who have reached out to me after stumbling on this blog. One of them is Deborah Anderson-Bialis who, with her husband, recently founded a company to help prevent exactly the kind of thing that happened to me. FertilityIQ is a central clearinghouse for information-sharing related to fertility treatments, to make sure that people seeking doctors and clinics “won’t waste time, money, and emotion on the wrong doctor for them.”

Their site is incredibly robust and it’s an amazing resource. They’re looking to build up their collection of doctor reviews, and by helping to spread the word I know I’m helping to make sure that people seeking doctors can access as much information as possible.

If you are currently, or have in the past, worked with a fertility doctor, please submit your review (whether positive or negative) so others can learn from your experience. You should do this anyway just because it’s a good thing to do, and if you fill it out in the next week, by Thursday, April 27, you’ll be entered into a drawing for up to $10,000 towards an IVF cycle, for yourself or a friend. And you should also do it because if you say you were referred to the site by Carrie Bornstein (at the end of the survey) and you win, I’ll get $2,500 which will go right to Mayyim Hayyim.

And you should also also do it because for every valid review they receive from you wonderful folks who put in my name, they’ll also make a donation directly to Mayyim Hayyim, to support our work serving women and men on a fertility journey.

Please share this post to make sure as many people as possible know about this incredible opportunity?